ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the development of a hypothesis relating to early schizophrenia and outlines a proposed method of investigation to test the validity of the theory advanced. The basic pathological breakdown was observed to lie in an impairment of ego functions, particularly in the process of perception. A comparison of the chronic schizophrenic patient’s behaviour with that of the young child substantiated this view that the basic disturbance in schizophrenia was a cognitive one which caused the patient to operate at a perceptual level comparable to the primitive and unorganized processes characteristic of infancy and childhood. The most useful arrangement of categories was found to include the processes of attention, perception, motility, and thinking. The interview material was analysed by breaking it up into a number of separate statements, each representing the patient’s description of a symptomatic alteration in his experience.
